Samsung Galaxy S II Review

Once again we have an extremely powerful smartphone in our possession, the Samsung Galaxy S II. The Galaxy S II is probably one of the most popular devices this year thanks to its large, extremely high quality 4.3-inch display, dual-core processor and 1GB of RAM, which enable it to carry out a whole range of processes without any problem at all.

Combined with the brilliant design and £400 price tag, the Samsung Galaxy S II seems like the perfect phone. Let’s see how it performs…

Display

As well as this, the screen is a Gorilla Glass display therefore helping to prevent accidental damage to the screen such as scratches whilst it’s in your pocket.

Buttons / Ports

The Galaxy S II has one main physical button, the home button, which is located in the centre at the bottom of the phone. When turned on, both an in-app settings button and back button (both capacitive) are situated on either side.

If we pan around the device, you’ll notice a volume rocker on the left and the power/lock button on the right.

The top features the 3.5mm headphone jack and microphone, and finally the microUSB port, which is located at the bottom of the device.

Camera

If we take a look at the front of the Galaxy S II, you’ll see the 2MP front-facing camera, which will most likely be used for video calling or perhaps recording a video of yourself if you’re a video blogger on sites such as YouTube.

The rear camera is an 8MP camera, which has both autofocus and an LED flash.

Overall, I was very impressed with both the still photo quality and video recording quality of the Samsung Galaxy S II.

The Galaxy S II is capable of recording in 1080p HD at 30 frames per second, identical to the Apple iPhone 4S. The overall HD video quality seemed to be quite good. I’d say that the 1080p video quality was more impressive on the iPhone 4S, but both are very good in their own rights with the Samsung Galaxy S II providing more features within the camera app than the iPhone 4S does.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82cEghbeV_0[/youtube]

Audio

To test the audio, I downloaded Spotify from the Android Market Place. After playing a couple of tracks that featured bass heavily and a couple of classical pieces, I came to the conclusion that the Galaxy S II definitely has some brilliant speakers.

I did think that it could do with slight boost in terms of bass quality though because it sounded slightly flat during the bass intensive songs.

I would say that the clarity, crispness and overall quality was much better than previous smartphones from the Galaxy range though.

CPU, Memory and Storage

The Samsung Galaxy S II houses a dual-core 1.2GHz A9 processor and 1GB of RAM, meaning that running lots of different apps, games and listening to music, all at the same time, is not a problem at all for the Galaxy S II.

The Galaxy S II is available in two different versions, a 16GB and a 32GB version. With the option to expand on this with the microSD card (up to 32GB), you’ve got more than enough space to store all of your 1080p videos, photos, music and apps.

All in all, in terms of CPU performance, I didn’t have any problems whatsoever with lag or slow downs of any kind. The dual-core 1.2GHz processor and 1GB of RAM provided more than enough power to keep the applications running at optimum speeds throughout the day.

Battery Life

The battery life was also another factor that I liked about the Samsung Galaxy S II. The specifications state that you can receive up to 18 hours of battery life whilst on a 2G network, which seemed to be almost exactly how long our battery lasted during testing.

Obviously, certain applications will require more power such as recording 1080p video and playing games that require more resources than apps such as Internet, Messages and Gmail.

I did test the Galaxy S II whilst on 3G as well, but seen as though the area I am in does not have great coverage, this will affect the battery life considerably because the phone will use more power whilst trying to connect and find a 3G signal. Saying that, I did still manage to receive just over 7 hours of battery with occasional use whilst on 3G.